Updike
 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/book...ike/index.html

I must admit that I didn't keep up with all of Updike's novels; after Couples I pretty much gave up. Maybe one of these days I'll sit down and read the Rabbit novels in sequence. And I never cared much for his serious verse, with the exception of the wonderful "Ex-Basketball Player" and a few others. But his light verse exerted a powerful influence on me, and I lament its demise (along with J. D. Smith) in The New Yorker. I don't know why he gave it up, but it was some of the best of that genre ever by an American poet. I know only a few of the famous short stories--"A&P," "Pigeon Feathers"--but every one that I read was excellent. A great talent here.

The passing of a literary age. Like The Greatest Generation. The Rabbit books are grim, desolate, but realized well. I preferred the lighter Bech series. His short stories are too elliptical for my taste. His worst error in my book came in Hugging the Shore, a work of criticism, in which he placed Carson McCullers in the same league as Flannery O'Connor.

Anyone read the Updike novel about the African dictator? I loved that one. Read it more or less straight through.

I loved his short stories when I was younger, as well as the Rabbit books (each one so true to the atmosphere of its decade); however, I have not kept up with his work very well since Bech (blecch!). My late mother was probably Updike's greatest fan. Back around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, she said that if Russia launched a nuke at us, she was going to jump in her car and drive really fast to Ipswich and tell John Updike that she loved him.